Melanie Turek

"Studies by the Texas Transportation Institute, Minnesota Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration have shown that the zipper merge (thus named because both lanes are used and drivers take turns merging one car at a time, like the teeth of a zipper) improves traffic flow by as much as 15 percent, according to the Detroit News. MnDOT also found it reduces the total length of a backup by as much as 50 percent, and commonly by 40 percent." --http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2014/05/the-zipper-merge-convincing-motorists-isnt-a-snap.html

On a separate note, I certainly hope the school does not decide to cut 10 academic days from the calendar even though the state doesn't mandate them. The SS schools are highly rated and are delivering a great education to our kids--please let's not cut into that learning time as you revise the calendar!

I find it amusing that Fred, who opposes every government spending plan around, is perfectly content to support spending millions of "OPM" on a bypass. Could it be because his company would stand to make a lot of money on such a project?

How many mechanics does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently, too many for Denver and United... 10pm flight tonight delayed for mechanical. Also, no flight attendant. THIS is why flying out of HDN is such a bust.

Scott, that's a fair question. The average on-time percentage for US airlines appears to hover around 80%. According to a recent article in the Pilot, of 182 flights in and out of YVRA between Jan 1 and Feb 11, 65% were on time; of the 82 cancelled or delayed flights, 52 were due to mechanical or crew problems. So, excluding the flights delayed by weather, which no one can control (and it's been a bad winter--many of those cancellations were due to weather in OTHER places), about 1/3 of flights in/out of YVRA were cancelled due to mechanical/crew. That, to me, is simply unacceptable. In an ideal world, the number should be zero. In the real world, I might accept 10%, with full refunds given for all cancelled flights. But the other issue, of course, is that if one is flying out of DIA and a flight is cancelled or severely delayed, there are other options--later flights, other airlines--so it is almost always possible to make it to your destination the same day (though sometimes very very late at night). That's not something HDN can match, and I don't expect it to--but it does but even more of a burden on the airlines to fly in and out of that airport on time and as planned.

Most business travelers don't care about shopping or visiting family in Denver. They want to get to their meeting and get home. Most of my business trip--a dozen or so per year--are 36 hours long; if I am delayed until the next day, I miss the reason for going. Given that so many flights in and out of HDN are cancelled, I simply cannot take the risk, although I would much prefer to fly out of there, and I don't care about the relatively minor difference in cost (minor for one person traveling on business; when I travel with a family of 5, cost does matter).

What amazes me is that no one at the airlines, the airport or the LMD seems to care that something like 50% of all flights between HDN and DEN are cancelled, and almost all those are due to mechanical or lack of crew (according to a Pilot article last month). That's just an insane way to operate a business. And you'd think there would at least be a claw-back clause in the contract that allow us to get our subsidies back for any flight cancelled for any reason other than weather.